The first bar I checked out in Dallas was Industry Alley Bar owned by my buddy Charlie Papaceno. I met Charlie back in 2011 when I first went to Portland Cocktail Week and we kept in touch every since.

I joked with Charlie if I should put the new bartender they were testing out through the ropes. To suss out the situation, I told the would-be Industry Alley bartender what I liked (brown, bitter, stirred) and if he could make a variation of it. As it turns out he just made me a Manhattan. It was a reasonable one.

Next I asked what he was working on and he said he didn’t have anything in mind but he did like to drink Sazaracs. That’s when Charlie jumped behind the bar and made me a proper Sazarac that could have been straight out of New Orleans.

Manhattan

Going to Industry Alley is like visiting your friend’s place. Okay, so maybe it was actually my friend’s place. But there’s a comfortable vibe to it. And I wish I was there for guest chef nights. It sounds like an amazing time with paired cocktails. They recently did a ramen event that sold out and the bar manager showed me the drinks list for it. Who knows, maybe I’ll pop back to Dallas soon.

Next, my friend and I popped into the Midnight Rambler at the Joule Hotel. It was crazy packed and exactly what I imagined for a hotel bar in Downtown Dallas. Still, we managed to get through to the bar and order a couple of drinks. I opted for the Perfect Prescription. It was the second drink on the menu and under the aromatic section. It’s a dark bar and it was hard to read the menu, especially since most of the drinks had more than five ingredients. However, I decided though this was the sort of place that would replace your drink if you didn’t like it without too many questions. Luckily I liked my drink but it was a standard Minty drink; brown, bitter and stirred. You can say it’s a hyper-Minty drink even with three liquors, two types of vermouths and two bitters.

I don’t recall what my friend had but I’m going to say it’s the Neroli Negroni or it could be the Cuffs and Buttons which sounds more interesting to me.

I found everyone to be generally friendly at the bar and we met a really nice couple. They told us we had to try CBD, the restaurant upstairs.

Eventually we escaped the busy Midnight Rambler and headed up the street a couple of blocks to The Mitchell. It’s a new bar and I breathed a sigh of relief to see it wasn’t too crowded. I seem to recall my friend being in a Negroni mood so I believe she tried the Mitchell’s version of a white negroni using Suze instead of Campari. It’s definitely a brilliantly yellow drink.

Mitchell Negroni – Langly gin, Suze, Dolin dry vermouth

Last Word

I had a classic Last Word rather than the Mitchell’s version which replaces gin with mezcal, swaps yellow chartreuse in for green chartreuse and uses Ancho Reyes chile liqueur instead of maraschino. I would imagine the result to be quite spicy. I did like my classic and sometimes that’s all I need in a nightcap.